Philip Zimbardo Quotes
-
What happens when good people are put into an evil place? Do they triumph or does the situation dominate their past history and morality?
→ -
Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse.
→ -
As a result of the prison study, I really became more aware of the central role of power in our lives. I became more aware of the power I have as a teacher. I started consciously doing things to minimize the negative use of power in the classroom. I encouraged students to challenge me.
→ -
Time matters because we are finite, because time is the medium in which we live our lives.
→ -
Our time is brief, and it will pass no matter what we do. So let us have purpose in spending it. Let us spend it so that our time matters to each of us, and matters to all those whose lives we touch.
→ -
Before I knew that a man could kill a man, because it happens all the time. Now I know that even the person with whom you've shared food, or whom you've slept, even he can kill you with no trouble. The closest neighbor can kill you with his teeth: that is what I have Learned since the genocide, and my eyes no longer gaze the same on the face of the world.
→ -
Situational variables can exert powerful influences over human behavior, more so that we recognize or acknowledge.
→ -
The line between good and evil is movable and it's permeable.
→ -
Heroes are Ordinary People whose social action is Extra-Ordinary/ who ACT when others are passive, who give up EGO-centrism for SOCIO-centrism.
→ -
The most dramatic instances of directed behavior change and "mind control" are not the consequence of exotic forms of influence, such as hypnosis, psychotropic drugs, or "brainwashing," but rather the systematic manipulation of the most mundane aspects of human nature over time in confining settings.
→ -
At North Hollywood High School, I was shunned by everyone. I would sit down in the cafeteria, and students would get up from the table and walk away. They thought I was from the Mafia...
→ -
We all like to think that the line between good and evil is impermeable--that people who do terrible things, such as commit murder, treason, or kidnapping, are on the evil side of this line, and the rest of us could never cross it. But the Stanford Prison Experiment and the Milgram studies revealed the permeability of that line. Some people are on the good side only because situations have never coerced or seduced them to cross over.
→ -
I was discriminated against because I was Jewish, Italian, black and Puerto Rican. But maybe the worst prejudice I experienced was against the poor. I grew up on welfare and often had to move in the middle of the night because we couldn't pay the rent.
→ -
As we have come to understand the psychology of evil, we have realized that such transformations of human character are not as rare as we would like to believe. Historical inquiry and behavioral science have demonstrated the "banality of evil" -- that is, under certain conditions and social pressures, ordinary people can commit acts that would otherwise be unthinkable.
→ -
Time perspective is one of the most powerful influences on all of human behavior. We're trying to show how people become biased to being exclusively past-, present- or future-oriented.
→ -
While no one can change events that occurred in the past, everyone can change attitudes and beliefs about them.
→ -
One can't live mindfully without being enmeshed in psychological processes that are around us.
→ -
Heroes are those who can somehow resist the power of the situation and act out of noble motives, or behave in ways that do not demean others when they easily can.
→ -
There are no limits to what I would do to make my classes exciting, interesting, unpredictable.
→ -
I have been primarily interested in how and why ordinary people do unusual things, things that seem alien to their natures. Why do good people sometimes act evil? Why do smart people sometimes do dumb or irrational things?
→ -
This is the woman who stopped the Stanford Prison Study. When I said it got out of control, I was the prison superintendent. I didn't know it was out of control. I was totally indifferent. She came down, saw that madhouse and said, "You know what, it's terrible what you're doing to those boys. They're not prisoners, they're not guards, they're boys, and you are responsible." And I ended the study the next day. The good news is I married her the next year.
→ -
That human behavior is more influenced by things outside of us than inside. The situation is the external environment. The inner environment is genes, moral history, religious training.
→ -
I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask. When someone is anonymous, it opens the door to all kinds of antisocial behavior, as seen by the Ku Klux Klan.
→ -
Depending on whom you ask, time is money, time is love, time is work, time is play, time is enjoying friends, time is raising children, and time is much more. Time is what you make of it.
→ -
Part of what we want to do with the Heroic Imagination Project is to get kids to think about what it means to be a hero. The most basic concept of a hero is socially constructed: It differs from culture to culture and changes over time. Think of Christopher Columbus. Until recently, he was a hero. Now he's a genocidal murderer! If he were alive today, he'd say, "What happened? I used to be a hero, and now people are throwing tomatoes at me!
→ -
Being hurt personally triggered a curiosity about how such beliefs are formed.
→ -
The [Stanford Prison Experiment] was readily approved by the Human Subjects Research committee because it seemed like college kids playing cops and robbers, it was an experiment that anyone could quit at any time and minimal safeguards were in place. You must distinguish hind sight from fore sight, knowing what you know now after the study is quite different from what most people imagined might happen before the study began.
→ -
I've always been curious about the psychology of the person behind the mask.
→ -
The level of shyness has gone up dramatically in the last decade. I think shyness is an index of social pathology rather than a pathology of the individual.
→ -
Whether we consider Nazi Germany or Abu Ghraib prison, there were many people who observed what was happening and said nothing. At Abu Ghraib, one photo shows two soldiers smiling before a pyramid of naked prisoners while a dozen other soldiers stand around watching passively. If you observe such abuses and don't say, "This is wrong! Stop it!" you give tacit approval to continue. You are part of the silent majority that makes evil deeds more acceptable.
→
Related Authors
-
Wilhelm Wundt Psychologist -
Albert Bandura Psychologist -
Robert Sternberg Psychologist -
-
Solomon Asch Psychologist -
Marina Abramovic Artist -
David Myers Professor -
James Q. Wilson Academic -
B. F. Skinner Psychologist -
Michael Moore Filmmaker -
Leland Stanford Former Governor of California -
Robert Cialdini Professor -
Rudy Giuliani Former Mayor of New York City -
Elliot Aronson Psychologist -
Leon Festinger Psychologist -
John B. Watson Psychologist -
Billy Crudup Actor -
Albert Gallatin Former American senator -
Stanley Milgram Psychologist -
Kurt Lewin Psychologist